Vivien Merchant

Ada Brand Thomson[1] (22 July 1929 – 3 October 1982), known professionally as Vivien Merchant, was an English actress. She began her career in 1942, and became known for dramatic roles on stage and in films. In 1956 she married the playwright Harold Pinter and performed in many of his plays.

Vivien Merchant
Portrait of Vivien Merchant by Cecil Beaton
Born	Ada Thompson 22 July 1929 Manchester, Lancashire, England
Died	3 October 1982 (aged 53) London, England
Spouse(s)	Harold Pinter ​ ​ (m. 1956; div. 1980)​
Children	1

Merchant achieved considerable success from the 1950s to the 1970s, winning the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress in 1964. For her role in the film Alfie (1966), she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer. In 1967, she starred in the Broadway production of Pinter's The Homecoming, and received a Tony Award nomination. Her other films included Accident (1967), The Offence (1972), Frenzy (1972), The Homecoming (1973), and The Maids (1975). Suffering from depression and alcoholism as her marriage ended, she died in 1982, two years after her divorce.

Career

Merchant took her stage name as a composite of the actress Vivien Leigh and her brother, who was a merchant seaman (cited by Michael Billington). She began acting professionally in 1942, with supporting juvenile roles in repertory, progressing to West End roles in such works as Noël Coward's Sigh No More and Ace of Clubs, becoming an established lead in repertory in the early 1950s. Merchant subsequently performed in many stage productions and several films, including Alfie (1966), Accident (1967), Frenzy (1972), and The Offence (also 1972). Her performance in Alfie gained her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress, and won her the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer and the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress.

After Merchant married the playwright Harold Pinter in 1956, she appeared in many of his plays, including the 1960 revival of his first play, The Room at the Hampstead Theatre, A Slight Ache, A Night Out, The Collection, and The Lover; the last was also a celebrated television production partnering Alan Badel at Associated Rediffusion, for which she was given an Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Newcomer and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress, both in 1963.

Merchant subsequently appeared as Wendy in Tea Party opposite Leo McKern in 1965. She starred as Ruth in The Homecoming (1964) on stage in both London in 1965 and New York in 1967, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play. She went on to star in the film version in 1973. The last of his plays in which she performed on stage was Old Times (1971) as Anna. She played Lady Macbeth to Paul Scofield's Macbeth for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967, directed by Sir Peter Hall.

Merchant took the role of Madame in the Greenwich Theatre revival of Jean Genet's The Maids partnering Glenda Jackson and Susannah York: This was filmed in 1974 by Christopher Miles. In 1975, Merchant and Timothy Dalton headed the cast of a revival of Coward's The Vortex at the Greenwich Theatre.[2]

Personal life

Merchant was the first wife of Harold Pinter, whom she met while working as a repertory actress; he was then working as an actor under the stage name of David Baron. They married in 1956, and their son, Daniel, was born in 1958.[3]

Their marriage began disintegrating in the mid-1960s. From 1962 to 1969, Pinter had a clandestine affair with Joan Bakewell, which inspires his play Betrayal.[4] In 1975, he began a serious affair with the historian Lady Antonia Fraser, the wife of Sir Hugh Fraser, which he confessed to his wife that March.[5] At first, Merchant took it very well, saying positive things about Fraser, according to her friend artist Guy Vaesen (as cited by Billington); but, Vaesen recalled, after "a female friend of Vivien's trotted round to her house and poisoned her mind against Antonia ... life in Hanover Terrace [where the Pinters then lived] gradually became impossible". Pinter left, and Merchant filed for divorce and gave interviews to the tabloid press, expressing her distress.[6][7] Merchant made some unflattering comments about Fraser at this time: "He didn't need to take a change of shoes. He can always wear hers. She has very big feet, you know."[8] Merchant believed Fraser to be the basis for the character of Emma in Pinter's play Betrayal, never learning about his prior affair with Joan Bakewell.[9]

The Frasers' divorce became final in 1977, and the Pinters' in 1980. In 1980, Pinter and Fraser married.

Death

Merchant became deeply depressed after the end of her marriage to Pinter, and turned to drinking for relief. She died at the age of 53 on 3 October 1982, from alcoholism.[10][11]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1966	Alfie	Lily Clamacraft	BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1967	Accident	Rosalind	National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress (runner-up)
1969	Alfred the Great	Freda
1972	Under Milk Wood	Mrs. Pugh
	Frenzy	Mrs. Oxford
	The Offence	Maureen Johnson
1973	The Homecoming	Ruth	Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
1975	The Maids	Madame

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1948	Virtuoso	Miss Coleman
1955	Sunday-Night Theatre	Elsa Perkins	Episode: The Fifty Mark
1959	The Infamous John Friend	"Crown Inn" Landlady	Episode: Episode #1.4
1960	Armchair Theatre	Girl	Episode: A Night Out
	ITV Television Playhouse	Rose Blatchford Sally Gibbs	Episode: The Honeymooners episode: Night School
1962	Studio 4	Olivia	Episode: The Weather in the Streets
1963	The Lover	Sarah
	Maupassant	Freda Dowie	Episode: Wives and Lovers
	ITV Television Playhouse	Angela Fairbourne	Episode: In Confidence
1965	ITV Play of the Week	Kathy Grayson	Episode: The Fall of the Sparrow
1966	Theatre 625	Natalia Petrovna Gertrude	Episode: A Month in the Country episode: Focus
	Seven Deadly Sins	Jane	Episode: My Friend Corby
	Thirty-Minute Theatre	Ella	Episode: Ella
1968	ITV Playhouse	Tessa	Episode: Funeral Games
	Play of the Month	Evelyn Daly	Episode: Waters of the Moon
1969	ITV Saturday Night Theatre	Maureen Instance	Episode: The Full Cheddar
1970	ITV Saturday Night Theatre	Augusta Fullam Audley	Episode: Wicked Women: Augusta Fullam Episode: Skyscrapers
1971	Aquarius	Anna in Old Times	Episode: 5 June 1971
	Play of the Month	Dona Ana	Episode: Don Juan in Hell
1972	A War of Children	Nora Tomelty	TV movie
1973	Play of the Month	Jane Noble	Episode: The Common
	Softly, Softly: Taskforce	Maggie Jarman	Episode: Cover
1977	The Lover	Sarah	TV movie
	The Man in the Iron Mask	Maria Theresa	TV movie
	The Velvet Glove	Elizabeth Fry	Episode: Beyond This Life
	Secret Army	Mile. Gunet	Episode: Growing Up
1980	Breakaway	Isabel Black	Episode: The Local Affair
	A Tale of Two Cities	Miss Pross	(TV miniseries)
1982	Crown Court	Judge	Episode: Face Value: Part 1, (final appearance)

Source: "Vivien Merchant". IMDb. Retrieved 26 March 2014. (with corrections)

References

1. Billington, Michael. "Pinter, Harold". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/100647. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. "The Vortex (1975–1976)" Archived 10 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Timothy Dalton – Shakespearean James Bond, accessed 28 June 2012
3. Details about the Pinters' marriage and their family life are provided by Michael Billington The Life and Work of Harold Pinter (London: Faber and Faber, 1996); rev. ed. Harold Pinter (London: Faber and Faber, 2007). (Pinter's official authorized biography.)
4. Billington Harold Pinter, pp. 256–267
5. Michael Billington (1996) The Life and Work of Harold Pinter, p. 253, Faber and Faber, ISBN 0571171036
6. E.g., "Actress Tells All", Daily Mail, as cited in Billington, Harold Pinter, pp. 253–254.
7. Cf. "People" Archived 20 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Time, 11 August 1975. Archived in the Time Archive: 1923 to the Present. (Page 1 of 2 pages.)
8. Peter Guttridge "Those choice words that say 'I hate you'", The Independent, 26 January 1996
9. Stop the Clocks: Thoughts on What I Leave Behind, Joan Bakewell, Virago, 2016
10. "Death of Vivien Merchant Is Ascribed to Alcoholism", The New York Times 7 October 1982, accessed 13 September 2007.
11. According to Billington, Pinter "did everything possible to support" Merchant until her death, and regrets that he became estranged from their son, Daniel, after their separation and Pinter's marrying Antonia Fraser. A reclusive writer and musician, Daniel does not use the surname Pinter, having adopted as his surname his maternal grandmother's maiden name Brand after his parents separated (Harold Pinter pp. 276, 255)

External links

• Vivien Merchant at IMDb
• Vivien Merchant at Find a Grave